Book 1 Project

Book 1 Project

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

                In order to get Nineteen Minutes into the spotlight, I propose the idea of creating and establishing a tour centered on anti-bullying. This tour would be organized to travel from school to school and give a presentation on bullying and the effects it can have; from small scale to large scale like those occurring in the novel. The novel would be a focus point of the tour and even though that particular story is a work of fiction, it can be related to other school shootings like Kent State, Columbine, Virginia Tech, and more recently, Chardon. Even as a work of Jodi Picoult’s creative genius, the novel poses a very important problem that occurs in all schools across the country. This tour would benefit the community and raise awareness of bullying as well as do wonders for the novel by putting its name out there.

                My idea for this tour comes from multiple places in the novel. Throughout the court cases, interviews, and day by day events, it is the sole detail that ties the whole book together. One particular example of this is when Peter writes a love email to Josie and it is read by Josie’s friend, Courtney, before Josie ever got a chance to see it. Courtney forwarded it on to another boy in their friend group and he “spammed” it out to the entire school to embarrass Peter. Peter was then tricked by one of the boys into going up to Josie, thinking she liked him back. Peter was had his pants pulled all the way down in front of the whole cafeteria because of that confrontation. That one example was just one of millions of reasons that drove Peter so fulfill the act of his shooting. He was bottled up and then the say came where he exploded all his emotions and people died because of it. A line in the novel that sums this up perfectly is, “Even though those people died today, Peter Houghton was dying for 17 years."

                Another problem with that affected Peter was his craving to be accepted. He was bullied and bullied and never felt that he could fit in with the other kids at his school. In one quote from the novel, Peter summed up exactly how he was feeling, “When you don't fit in, you become superhuman. You can feel everyone else's eyes on you, stuck like Velcro. You can hear a whisper about you from a mile away. You can disappear, even when it looks like you're still standing right there. You can scream, and nobody hears a sound. You become the mutant who fell into a vat of acid, the Joker who can't remove his mask, the bionic man who's missing all his limbs and none of his heart. You are the thing that used to be normal, but that was so long ago, you can't even remember what it was like.” His identity was important to Peter, at least on the inside. Being bullied all throughout his years caused him to feel invisible, worthless, and like he didn’t matter to the school; and if he didn’t matter, then who would care if he opened fire on the few people that had been hurting him for so long? In another line from the novel, Peters intentions are made clear, “One day Peter, I promise you, everyone will know your name." Everyone at some point in their lives has the craving to be accepted and know among their peers. Add this craving on top of constantly being bullied and there is a recipe for disaster.

                I think that the idea of having a tour focusing around bullying would work in selling the book Nineteen Minutes because it really points out the importance of picking up the signs that a child is struggling and suffering. If this tour was to travel to dozens of schools across the country, the book would be recommended and sold at all of these places and be planted in the minds of the audiences. I also think that it will do good and help attempt to cease the bullying problem that is occurring everywhere across the country.